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The following list represents an overview of the new features that are available in IBM Lotus Notes 8.5. For more comprehensive information about new features, please refer to the Lotus Notes 8.5 Help documentation by choosing "Help -> Help Contents" from the menu bar, or on-line at: http://infocenters.lotus.com/help7/index.jsp.
General Functionality
Context menus have been streamlined for Mail, Contacts, and To Do views. Right-click documents in any of these views, and you will see a more concise menu, with options relevant to the context. Additionally, you can right-click documents to mark them read or unread.
Navigate Notes preference fields using the Tab key.
Automatically compress images pasted into documents. Note that bitmap (.bmp) images that are imported into a Notes document are compressed; bitmap images that are pasted into a Notes document are converted to .gif or .jpg format. Choose "File -> Preferences -> Basic Notes Client Configuration", and then choose the appropriate setting under 'Additional options' (the setting is selected by default).
Drag-and-drop has been enhanced. Drag-and-drop between rich text fields in Notes documents (Windows only), drag Sametime Contacts names or groups to Notes name fields and rich text fields, or drag names from external applications to Notes name fields.
Roaming User for Notes standard configuration is introduced in this release. A new Roaming policy settings document is introduced to support this functionality, as are two new roaming-specific databases (a Feeds subscription database and an EclipseTM plug-in data and preferences database). User files configured for roaming now appear in a single Roaming Applications folder on the Notes replicator page. A new Roaming preference panel is available for Notes users configured for file server-based roaming. Note: Roaming User in the Notes standard configuration is not supported on the Mac OS® or Limux platforms for this beta release.
When you hover over Live Text and the cursor appearance changes, you can left-click the Live Text instance to start an action. If a default action has been assigned, the action runs. If no action has been defined as default, a panel of options appears.
The right-click Live Text action available in Notes 8.0.1 has been replaced with a Live Text context menu which you can access by clicking on the hover icon which displays when you hover over any Live Text instance.
Widgets and Live Text support on the Linux® and Mac OS platforms is introduced with this release; previously, Widgets and Live text was available on supported Windows platforms only.
Notes 8.5 adds support for installation and use on Macintosh OS. See the "Notes and Domino 8.5 platforms and system requirements" release note for operating system version support.
Notes 8.5 adds support for installation and use with Citrix® software. See the "Notes and Domino 8.5 platforms and system requirements" release note for version support. Note: This support was initially made available in Notes 8.0.1.
Notes 8.5 adds support for Notes standard configuration installation and use from a USB drive.
The Notes basic configuration Allclient install kit is no longer available, however the Notes-only basic configuration install kit remains available. Customers looking to install or upgrade to the Domino Designer 8.5 or Domino Administrator 8.5 clients must use the Notes standard configuration Allclient install kit. This is applicable to the Windows client platform as there is no Notes basic configuration install kit for the Mac OS or Linux platforms.
The Notes start-up sequence has been reordered as part of a performance enhancement in this release.
Mail
Type-ahead includes all e-mail addresses stored in a user's contact entry To select an alternate e-mail address, when you begin typing a name, select "Other E-mail Addresses" from the menu that appears. The more frequently-used addresses display at the top of the list.
A new Folder column in the mail 'All Documents' view displays any mail folders that a document is in.
Calendar
Add Google CalendarTM entries, another Notes user's calendar, or an iCal® feed. In the Views panel of the calendar navigator, choose "My Calendars -> Add a Calendar". Once the name you give to the other calendar displays in your navigator, click the check box beside it to display its calendar entries.
Horizontal scroll bar for Calendar views has been added. When all of the header information for calendar entries cannot be displayed completely for a day in a calendar view, the day displays a horizontal scroll bar. You can use a mouse or the keyboard left and right arrow keys to scroll with the bar, and display the rest of the header information for calendar entries.
Contacts
Importing and exporting contacts is available. To import external contacts to your Notes Contacts, from Contacts, choose "File -> Import Contacts". If field remapping is required, it can be done first, or done in Contacts after the import. To export your contacts, and to now filter which contacts and fields to export, from Contacts, choose "File -> Export -> Contacts".
Forward contacts as a vCard from Contacts. Select the contact(s) you want to forward as a vCard and choose "Forward vCard".
Add international sets of alphabet tabs. Choose the menu icon at the bottom of the tabs column, and then choose from Greek, Hebrew, Arabic, Thai, Vietnamese, Japanese, or Cyrillic.
Notes Applications
New Notebook (formerly Personal Journal template). The Personal Journal template has a new name, and a new look. When you install or upgrade to Notes 8.5, any new Notebook you create will use the new template (Notebook8.ntf). In addition, any existing journal template will be updated automatically if one of the following conditions are met.
It is named journal.nsf
It was created from the Default Home Page
It was created manually using "File > Application > New" and was subsequently linked to your default Home page by using the "Set Journal" option. Journals created this way but not linked to your default Home page will not be updated automatically. Use "File > Application > Replace Design" to update existing journal templates manually.
More seamless failover in mail client and composite applications. Since version 8.0, the Notes client is itself an example of a composite application involving both Java and non-Java components. In the Notes client for this release, regardless of which part (component) of your mail client you are in, initiating an action when your mail server is down will cause that component to fail over to another server in the cluster.
For example, if you are working in the Follow Up or Calendar miniview (an .NSF component of your mail application) and your mail server goes down, the miniview will fail over. Moreover, the failover of one component triggers all related components to fail over; in the previous example, the failover by the miniview triggers the Inbox to fail over as well.
Sametime in Notes 8.5
Drag messages to add names to your Sametime Contacts list. You can drag a Mail message to any personal group in your Sametime Contacts list and add all the members of the group to your list at one time. This can also be done with Calendar and To Do entries that have recipients (such as meetings or group To Do assignments), and with Contacts entries.
Lotus Symphony in Notes 8.5
Performance enhancements, including .ODP and .PPT file format save, application start up, new document creation, spell checking in Presentation and Spreadsheet, Presentation page painting, and an optimized sidebar refresh
Interoperability with other file formats
Improved support for chart rendering, numbering and bulleting with Microsoft Office documents
Support for opening and playing Microsoft PowerPoint .PPS file format
Support for displaying Presentation table in OpenOffice.org
Improved support for graphics and layouts in SmartSuite documents
Function enhancements in three editors
Support for the page slider function in Presentation
Support for the validity list function in Spreadsheet
Improved support for the Table of Contents function in Documents
Improved support for spell checking in Presentation template files
Improved support for configurable default file types when creating new documents
The following list represents an overview of the new features that are available in IBM Lotus Domino 8.5. For more comprehensive information about new features, please refer to the Domino 8.5 Administrator Beta Help documentation, available by choosing "Help -> Help Topics" from the Domino Administrator client, or on-line at: http://infocenters.lotus.com/help7/index.jsp.
Notes Client Administration/Support
Notes 8.5 introduces support for file server roaming and IBM Lotus Domino server roaming, for the Notes Standard configuration client only. Server roaming is not supported with the Notes client basic configuration. If you use the Notes client basic configuration, you will roam as in previous Notes and Domino releases.
Notes 8.5 introduces support for installation and use of the Notes Standard configuration client from a USB drive.
Notes 8.5 introduces support for Widgets and Live Text on supported Linux and Mac OS platforms; previously this was available only on supported Windows platforms.
Notes 8.5 supports installation and use on supported Mac OS X platforms.
Notes 8.5 supports installation and use on supported Citrix platforms.
Databases
The Domino Attachment and Object Service (DAOS) reduces the total cost of ownership of maintaining any participating Notes database by storing all file attachments in a separate repository on the server and retrieving them by reference. Multiple copies of the same attachment in any participating Notes database on the server are stored only once, eliminating disk space devoted to duplicate storage.
Groups
The auto-populated groups feature uses pre-defined criteria to automatically determine and update group membership. Use the auto-populated groups feature to apply policies to users and groups based on their home servers.
Policies
Dynamic policy assignment is a new option for assigning explicit policies that allows administrators to assign policy settings to individual users and groups simply by specifying the appropriate user or group name in a policy document. As the organization changes, only the Group document needs to be updated. For example, if a user changes jobs or organizations, you do not need to determine which policies need updating; the updated group information is applied the next time the effective policy is calculated for any users in that group.
A new Roaming policy page has been added in support of the file server roaming and Domino server roaming user functionality introduced in this release for Lotus Notes users (Notes Standard Client configuration only). A Domino 8.5 server is required to see and use the new policy page, and the new roaming functionality.
Security
Notes shared login allows users to start Lotus Notes and use their Notes ID, without having to provide Notes passwords. Instead, users only need to log into Microsoft Windows using their Windows password. Unlike the Notes Single Login feature in earlier releases, Domino 8.5 does not use the Windows password for the Notes ID file. Instead, it stores a secret used to unlock the Notes ID file in a secure way, provided by an external mechanism. Domino 8.5 uses a Windows mechanism, so the secret will only be accessible by users who have logged into Windows.
A Notes ID vault is an optional, server-based database that holds protected copies of Notes user IDs. An ID vault allows administrators and users to easily manage Notes user IDs. When IDs are lost, new copies are easily recovered from the ID vault. When users forget their Notes passwords, administrators can provide help instructions that are displayed when users click the new Forgotten Password button in the Notes login window. Authorized personnel can reset (change) the passwords, without requiring access to the ID files or the vault. Or a custom self-service agent can be used to allow users to reset their own passwords. Policies are used to assign users to a vault, and copies of the user IDs are uploaded from Notes clients to the vault automatically after authentication with a server once the policy has taken effect.
Note: Because ID file synchronization work is still in progress, for beta you should use the vault only in a test environment, without production users and user IDs.
Server
Console log mirroring causes a new server thread to be created which monitors all messages written to the Console Log file, and duplicates those messages into another file. When the new file is filled, the thread closes the mirrored file and creates a new file into which subsequent messages are written.
Server commands
New and enhanced server commands include:
Show Stat Mail - View new messaging statistics in the server console window when you enter this command.
DAOS Prune - Forces objects in the Domino Attachment and Object Service (DAOS) repository that are currently awaiting deletion to be deleted immediately, overriding any specified setting for deferred deletion.
Show Tasks - The Show Tasks server command now includes task status from additional mail router threads, and generates detail regarding router activity.
Show Server and Show Directory - These commands now report whether the Domino Attachment and Object Service (DAOS) is enabled, and provide a list of which databases are included in DAOS, with details for each.
Web Server
The Domino Web server can serve files compressed by gzip (GNU zip); this feature is enabled by default. You must add the compressed file to the appropriate server directory, and certain restrictions apply.
IBM i Operating System
IBM i is the new name for the i5/OS operating system, featuring the newest release, IBM i 6.1. IBM i is for IBM Power Systems including AS/400, iSeries, and System i. For more information, see http://www.ibm.com/systems/i/.
For more information about Domino 8.5 on IBM i and which versions of the IBM i operating system can be used with Domino 8.5, see the following release notes:
IBM i: Getting started
IBM i: Software requirements
The following list represents an overview of the new features and improvements that are available in IBM Lotus Domino Designer 8.5. For more comprehensive information about new features, please refer to the Lotus Domino Designer 8.5 Help documentation, available by choosing "Help -> Help Contents" from the Domino Designer client.
Domino Designer in Eclipse
Domino Designer moves to the Eclipse platform for Notes 8.5. This direction moves the application development aspects of Notes Domino to the same Eclipse platform that is supported starting with the Notes 8.0 client. You can consolidate application development onto the Eclipse platform - an open source, pluggable environment that helps you reduce training expenses while promoting reuse and sharing of IT artifacts for more efficient development. Lotus software embraces and builds upon many open standards and this move for Domino Designer 8.5 helps you combine collaboration tools and business applications for a more productive end user experience.
Some of the benefits of the move to the Eclipse platform include:
Extensible script editor and debugger framework
Built-in editors for CSS, XML, HTML
Ability to take advantage of the continuing improvements in Eclipse
Ability to extend the tool through Eclipse extension points
Ability to work with multiple IBM tools in a single container
New design elements for this version include:
XPages
Custom controls
Server-side JavaScript libraries
Themes
Application Design
XPages
An XPage is a new design element that lets you create Web 2.0-enabled pages based on JSF technology. XPages remove the barrier of web programming in Domino by providing advanced page design capabilities and complete control of the generated markup. XPages also allow access to any kind of data, and provide an easy method for localizing applications. XPages are one of the design elements available from the Designer Navigator (the left-hand tab of the new user interface). Refer to the Designer online help for more information.
Note: IBM i does not support XPages in this beta release.
Specific features of XPages include:
AJAX-enabled, for example, partial page refresh, type-ahead capability
Advanced web control library, for example, tabbed panel
Full support for styling using CSS
Fully extensible using custom controls (composite controls or Java-based controls), or JSF extensions.
A custom control is a collection of controls that are stored as a single object. Similar to subforms in Domino Designer, custom controls are design elements that you can create once and add to multiple pages. When you update a custom control, every page that uses that custom control gets updated with the changes. This saves you design time because you do not have to update each separate page.
Common uses of custom controls include adding a company logo to business documents or adding mailing label information to mail and memo pages. A custom control can be a permanent part of a page or can appear conditionally, depending on the result of a formula. For example, you might offer users a choice of custom mail pages with different graphics and styles for various types of mail messages, such as memos, alerts, or letters.
In addition to reusing custom controls across multiple pages and managing updates in a single place, you can also add editable areas to custom controls, create shared libraries of custom controls to use across components, and organize custom controls in the Controls palette for easy access. By default, custom controls are stored as XSP and XSP-CONFIG files in your Eclipse workspace. Refer to the Designer online help for more information.
JavaScript scripting language support for client-side and server-side actions
Pre-built, simple actions provided for most common cases
Direct access to Java libraries on the server
Ability to use new Themes design element - Themes are available for XPages to provide server-side customization of HTML generation that can be used to define the look and feel of an application.
Themes can be set globally, to apply to all applications run on a server, or applied to a single application, and different themes can also be applied depending on context. Additional features of themes include:
A theme can assign values to any XML property, including such functional properties as the number of rows displayed by a view.
Themes can assign values of JSF expressions, which will be interpreted as if that expression was in the source.
Themes can be used to control all XML properties of an XPage.
Themes are different from Style Sheets in that they are not restricted to CSS styles. Themes can control all CSS style properties and the body style attribute for web pages served by Domino; the same theme can be customized to target the XPages and Domino Web environment with different properties.
Themes are one of the design elements available from the Designer Navigator (the left hand tab of the new user interface), and are available under the Shared Resources design element category. Refer to the Designer online help for more information.
Classic Designer features
JavaScript controls for display of of rich text - This release permits the display of rich text on the Web as a Dojo-based JavaScript control. Dojo is an Open Source DHTML toolkit written in JavaScript. See http://dojotoolkit.org.
The default styling for JavaScript controls is through the following Cascading Style Sheet (CSS) file on the Domino server: domino\data\domino\js\dojo\ibm\domino\domino-default.CSS, where domino\data\domino\js\dojo\ is the Dojo directory under the Domino data directory; take care if you modify this file. You can modify rich text Web styling through the HTML tab of the properties box.
When designing a Web application, the following options define how rich text displays in a browser:
"Using HTML" renders the control as HTML and is the default behavior.
"Using Java Applet" renders the control as an applet. This allows browser users to see mouse-over distinctions for items in the outline, including change of color to indicate a selected item, and see background items.
"Using Best Fit for OS" allows the Domino Web server to render the control as it sees fit depending on the client browser.
"Using JavaScript Control" renders the control as JavaScript using the Dojo toolkit. The benefits are similar to using an applet, but the Dojo-based mechanism uses standard HTML and CSS.
To specify how to display rich text, create a rich text field, then choose "Design - Field Properties". On the Info tab, for 'Web Access', select "Using HTML", "Using Java Applet", "Using Best Fit for OS", or "Using JavaScript Control".
Ability to enable enhanced HTML generation - the new "Enable enhanced HTML generation" database option turns on several new features of the Domino Web Engine. This includes the following:
The HTML will be "XML Compatible" meaning that it is parseable with an XML parser.
Class names are automatically added to the markup for action bar, outline and view. The class names can be used to style the markup.
Limited support for XPages themes: at the database level one or more stylesheets can be associated with every page generated by the web server, and a class name can be associated with every <body> tag generated.
Specifically, NOTES.INI HTML settings have been added that can be used by editing your NOTES.INI file. The following new settings and options are featured:
DominoStrictHTML=101 - forces the closing of all closable HTML tags
DominoHTMLOptions=AutoClass=<setting>,Themes=1
where
AutoClass -- adds class names to various notes objects, see table
Themes=1 -- turns on limited xPage theme support in the Domino Web Server
For example, a web application developer will be able to create a CSS stylesheet that controls the styling of a Domino web page for a specific set of Domino objects. Also, a skilled JavaScript developer will be able to manipulate a set of Domino objects in the browser at runtime with JavaScript code. Neither of these capabilities existed in previous releases.
Programming
LotusScript language
Date statement - not valid on UNIX or Macintosh OS X operating systems
Time statement - not valid on UNIX or Macintosh OS X operating systems
Limits on file operations in LotusScript - No limit to the line length of a Write statement
Spaces in LotusScript file names - Determines which file handling routines preserve leading spaces and which remove them.
Formula language
New function - @AbstractSimple.
New command - CopySelectedAsTable @Command.
LotusScript/COM/OLE classes
The NotesAdministrationProcess.AddInternetCertificateToUser method is now available for use with the CA process.
New method - NotesDatabase.GetAllReadDocuments.
New method - NotesDatabase.GetAllUnreadDocuments.
New method - NotesDocumentCollection.Intersect.
Java/CORBA classes
Running a program - Support for the Sun Java 2 Platform, Technology Edition, v 1.4.2.
The AdministrationProcess.addInternetCertificateToUser method is now available for use with the CA process.
The AgentContext.unprocessedDocuments property can now run Before New Mail Arrives and After New Mail Arrives.
The following list represents an overview of the new features that are available in IBM Lotus Domino 8.5. For more comprehensive information about new features, please refer to the Domino 8.5 Administrator Beta Help documentation, available by choosing "Help -> Help Topics" from the Domino Administrator client, or on-line at: http://infocenters.lotus.com/help7/index.jsp.
To view the newest Domino Web Access features, you must have a Domino 8.5 server installed. In addition, users must be registered using the Domino Web Access mail system, and the Mail (8.5) mail template.
A new Ultralite mode provides mail, contacts, and a day-at-a-glance calendar on the Apple iPhone or iPod touch. For information on ultralite mode, see the topic "Domino Web Access ultralite" in the Domino 8.5 Administrator Beta Help documentation referenced at the beginning of this release note.
Support for mail policy settings to set or to enforce mail settings for Domino Web Access users. In addition to supporting exising settings that can be applied to either a Notes or a Domino Web Access user, the Mail policy settings document includes a Domino Web Access tab that includes settings for Domino Web Access users only. Note that the offline settings on the Domino Web Access - Offline tab are not supported for this Beta release. For information on these settings, see the topic "Creating mail policy settings for Domino Web Access users" in the Domino 8.5 Administrator Beta Help documentation referenced at the beginning of this release note.
For Domino Web Access features that send requests to external servers or Web services, such as Quickr integration, external calendar overlays, or Widgets, administrators should use an HTTP-proxy servlet to intercept calls and retrieve information from a remote site. For information on how to configure an HTTP-proxy servlet, see the topic "Use an HTTP-proxy Servlet to restrict URLs to external servers" in these release notes.
Administrators can define a set of external widgets that can be integrated into the Domino Web Access mail client as services. These widgets display in the user's mail file in a Widgets folder, where users can click a widget to access it. For information, see the topic "Using widgets in Domino Web Access" in the Domino 8.5 Administrator Beta Help documentation referenced at the beginning of this release note.
The full mode of Domino Web Access is on a new tabbed framework for documents and views. This new framework has the look and feel of the lite mode that was introduced in 8.0.1. It provides more parity with the Notes client, and is more efficient. Although the conversion of the Full mode to the new framework is not complete, this Beta release supports the following new features:
Open a document in a new window - When you are reading a message, you can "tear off" the message into a new window by clicking an icon in the document action bar.
Switcher icons - Located at the top of the left navigation panel. Users simply click an icon to open an application.
Sidebar - This Notes-style sidebar displays a day-at-a-glance calendar and the Help. To open or close the sidebar, users click the sidebar icon.
Preview pane can be viewed on the side or on the bottom of the screen.
Day-at-a-glance - The day-at-a-glance calendar displays your calendar entries in the sidebar.
Loading status - When opening documents, tabs display a status icon indicating that a document is loading.
Calendar views - Views that include time slots have been updated with the new look.
External calendar overlays - Users can add an external calendar to their Domino Web Access calendar.
Quickr integration - users can include Lotus Quickr links into e-mail messages.
Console logging -- If something goes wrong, an error message displays in the status bar notifying the user of a problem and presenting an easy way to view the console if desired. If another type of error occurs, users can press Ctrl and then click the Lotus Domino Web Access logo to open the support console. Information displayed in the support console can help developers investigate the problem.
The lite mode introduced in 8.0.1 includes the following new features:
Users can view their mail quota information.
From the Inbox or an open meeting invitation, users can accept with comments, or decline with comments.
Users can create meeting invitations.
Feedback response number JKEY7F4NM2 created by ~Denise Eknulitli on 05/29/2008
What's new in Notes/Domino 8.5 
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. . What's new in Notes/Domino 8.5 (~Tip Deslustero... 29.May.08) 
